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REX Takes On Zillow and National Association of Realtors’ Alleged Cartel Activity In Antitrust Filing On Behalf Of American Consumers

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REX’s complaint and preliminary injunction seeks relief from NAR and MLS rules meant to prioritize Big Brokers’ profits over American consumers

Austin, TX – March 9, 2021 (PRNewswire) On behalf of its clients and all American consumers concerned about competition and transparency in real estate, REX has filed a federal antitrust complaint in Seattle, Washington against Zillow, Trulia, and the National Association of Realtors (NAR). REX, a real estate technology company, is breaking the stranglehold that REX believes the NAR and its members have held over consumers for generations, resulting in fees that are two to three times higher than in most developed countries. REX filed the complaint after the company’s clients complained about the second-class treatment that non-cartel homes were receiving.

Recently, Zillow quietly began obtaining brokerage licenses throughout the country and then joined NAR and local associations. In January, as a part of its cooperation with NAR and MLSs, Zillow began moving homes out of its initial search results for sellers who chose not to use agents adhering to the NAR and local multiple listing service (MLS) practices which hike fees and lower customer service. REX is fighting against second-class status for anyone who wants to sell outside the NAR/MLS regime.

Prior to this significant update to Zillow’s platform, everyone had equal access. As the company celebrates its 15th anniversary, Zillow is straying from its disruptive roots by joining the Big Broker ranks. Evidence shows that deprioritizing non-MLS members – such as creating a separate page as Zillow has done – has significant impact on consumers looking to buy and sell real estate in the market. This separate page ultimately benefits NAR/MLS members while hurting consumers.

Once Zillow became a broker and began joining the NAR and MLSs, the company started subscribing to the same old practices that have caused Americans to pay the highest real estate commissions in the world. This practice forces home sellers to agree upfront to pay thousands of dollars in excess fees to the broker firm on the other side of the deal.

Collusion with the NAR/MLS cartel rules hurts consumers who refuse to comply with traditional real estate’s pre-arranged 6% fees at a time when technology has largely replaced labor costs. $60 billion in fees are extracted from American consumers every year.

“Zillow began like so many other platforms: it served a great value to American consumers. Unfortunately, we see Zillow as backtracking on their original mission to serve consumers, instead focusing on their own profits,” said REX CEO Jack Ryan.

“We launched REX to put the consumer back in charge of real estate and transactions,” Ryan continued. “This case builds on the DOJ’s recent antitrust settlement with NAR/MLSs that beat back some anticompetitive practices. We believe this litigation will define whether technology will serve and protect Big Brokers and the NAR cartel or whether it will make good on its promise of greater ease, service, transparency and lower commission fees for consumers.”

In addition to lodging the antitrust complaint in federal court, REX filed a preliminary injunction motion asking for immediate relief.

The internet has radically altered how Americans shop for homes with technology replacing much of the historical labor costs of brokers in real estate transactions. Yet, the complaint alleges, the NAR and its members, Zillow and Trulia included, are using collusive tactics to restrain trade by forcing Americans to agree to abide by the NAR and MLSs’ association rules and paying traditionally high commissions to continue posting new listings to what was once a democratized digital platform.

REX’s complaint against Zillow and NAR comes on the heels of the DOJ’s November 2020 Federal lawsuit and proposed settlement against the NAR. REX assembled a legal team which includes antitrust experts and former leaders who drove antitrust investigations of digital platforms that consumers engage with every day. NAR is also facing a growing list of complaints and class actions in Federal and state courts filed by consumers concerned about fees, a lack of transparency, and outmoded practices that prioritize Big Brokers’ profits over consumers’ best interests.

Key Arguments Made By REX In The Complaint:

  • Aggregator sites facilitate transactions that allow millions of Americans every year to relocate for new personal and professional opportunities.
  • Direct consumer access to available homes—and the ability for licensed non-NAR, non-MLS brokers and agents to make homes directly visible to consumers—opens the pathway for new, innovative real estate service providers. And, critically, it introduces competition that benefits consumers through greater choice in output and downward pressure on traditionally high commission structures which lowers cost to consumers.
  • After NAR and its MLS partners, which now includes Zillow, closed transparent access to home inventory by agreeing to private rules that disadvantage all but their own membership, consumers and competition will suffer.
  • Consumers are harmed as is REX’s innovative and competitive model by the collusive agreements between the NAR and Zillow, along with their MLS affiliates. Zillow recently joined NAR-affiliated MLSs and imposed its associational rules to conceal all non-MLS listings on Zillow’s heavily trafficked websites.

About REX (rexhomes.com)
REX is resetting the traditional real estate broker model and upending how Americans interact with real estate — from buying and selling processes to managing all aspects of your home, including maintenance, landscaping, mortgage, escrow, title, insurance, and moving. REX is dramatically lowering costs and improving the consumer experience in real estate to help Americans unlock the wealth in their homes. We’re headquartered in Austin, TX and run by engineers, data scientists, and market experts with prior experience at Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Uber. REX works as a partner in the global fight against housing insecurity. For every 50 homes sold at REX, the company builds a home for a family that would otherwise be unable to realize the dream of homeownership. Check out REX’s newsroom (newsroom.rexhomes.com) for the latest press releases, podcast episodes, market analysis, useful data for stories on tech and real estate, and information about the company.

CONTACT
Colin Maynard
cmaynard@rexhomes.com
(916) 834-4274

SOURCE REX

Trulia Reports Housing Inventory Falls Nearly 5 Percent Nationwide as 2018 Closes

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Hope for Buyers on the West Coast as San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange County End Year with Double-Digit, Year-over-Year Gains in For-Sale Homes

San Francisco, CA – Dec. 20, 2018 (PRNewswire) The number of homes for sale nationwide tumbled 4.6 percent year-over-year in the last three months of 2018 across all price categories, according to the latest Inventory and Price Watch Report from Trulia®, a home and neighborhood site for homebuyers and renters. This marks the ninth consecutive quarter of declining inventory; the last time inventory rose was in Q3 2016. However, there are signs of progress with the nation’s most expensive housing markets seeing large inventory gains.

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Buyers Face Tighter Inventory and Worsening Affordability Heading Into 2019
The drop in inventory is largely driven by the premium home segment where the number of for-sale homes fell 7.8 percent year-over-year (YoY), followed by modest declines across starter (2.2 percent) and trade-up homes (1.5 percent). Meanwhile, affordability has worsened across all housing segments as tight inventory and slow wage growth continues to put upward pressure on home prices. Nationally, starter home prices rose the most, up 13.9 percent from the last year. As a result, a typical starter-home buyer must now spend 41 percent of their income on a monthly mortgage payment, up from 34.2 percent a year ago.

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“After promising signs of slowing inventory declines last quarter, the news is mixed as we close out 2018,” said Cheryl Young, senior economist, Trulia. “While more sellers are listing homes in expensive West Coast markets, most homebuyers must still contend with tight inventory that’s down 24 percent from five years ago. Coupled with slow wage growth, prices continue to inch higher, worsening affordability within the starter home market and possibly putting homeownership out of reach for many first-time buyers.”

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Starter and Trade-Up Home Inventory Surges in Pricey California Markets
Housing markets in the West experienced the nation’s largest inventory gains despite the large dip in supply. Among the 100 largest U.S. metros, six of the markets with the biggest surge in inventory from last year were in California, most notably in San Jose (66.6 percent), San Francisco (36.5 percent) and Oakland (29.2 percent). This surge in every market except New York was driven by growth in starter and trade-up homes. In fact, the number of starter and trade-up homes in San Jose almost doubled from a year ago.

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Starter Home Affordability Continues to Worsen
Despite inventory gains in the most expensive housing markets, prices continue to rise and outpace wage growth – especially in the starter home category. This has further put homeownership out of reach for many first-time buyers. For example, a typical starter-home buyer in San Francisco where the median starter home lists for nearly $900,000, would need to spend an unrealistic 146.9 percent of their income to afford a home.

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Methodology
The Trulia Inventory and Price Watch offers buyers and sellers deeper insight into the change in supply and affordability of homes, within three different segments of the market: starter homes, trade-up homes, and premium homes. Based on the for-sale homes listed on Trulia, this report calculates housing inventory within each segment nationally and in the 100 largest U.S. metros, from October 1 to December 1, 2018. For the full report and methodology, see here.

About Trulia
Trulia’s mission is to build a more neighborly world by helping you discover a place you’ll love to live. Homebuyers and renters use Trulia’s website and suite of mobile apps to get a deeper understanding of homes and neighborhoods across the U.S. through personalized recommendations, insights sourced straight from locals, and 34 neighborhood map overlays that offer details on commute, reported crime, schools, nearby businesses, and more. Founded in 2005, Trulia is based in San Francisco, and owned and operated by Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z and ZG). Trulia is a registered trademark of Trulia, LLC.

Media Contact:
pr@trulia.com



Trulia: Price Cuts Reach Highest Level Since 2014

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A shift towards a buyer’s market may be underway, according to a new Trulia analysis

San Francisco, CA – Oct. 11, 2018 (PRNewswire) The share of home listings with a price cut grew to its highest level since 2014, according to a new analysis from Trulia®, a home and neighborhood site for home buyers and renters. In August 2018, 17.2 percent of U.S. listings had a price cut, up from 16.7 percent a year ago.

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For much of the first half of 2018 the share of listings on Trulia with a price cut was largely unchanged from 2017, before shooting up in July and August. Coupled with home price growth that has begun to slow, and inventory levels that are creeping back up in some places, a higher rate of price cuts could be a critical third confirmation that things may finally be shifting in buyers’ favor.

“Buyers should be encouraged by the signals we’re seeing in the market,” Trulia Housing Economist Felipe Chacon. “But not all buyers will benefit equally, and it pays to do research on your preferred neighborhood. Price reductions typically aren’t uniformly spread out across a given city – some neighborhoods might have a lot of listings with a reduced price, others may have none. Our research shows that price cuts are much more prevalent in higher-cost neighborhoods, so budget-conscious buyers may have some trouble finding a bargain.”

Of the top 100 metros, 63 had a higher share of listings with a price cut this August than last August – and some of the priciest and/or fastest-growing markets experienced the biggest jump. In fast-moving Las Vegas, the share of listings with a price cut rose from roughly one-in-eight a year ago (12.6 percent) to more than one-in-five currently (20.8 percent) – the largest percentage-point jump among all metros analyzed. In San Jose, where the median home is worth more than $1.2 million and home values are growing more than 20 percent year-over-year, the share of listings with a price cut in August more than doubled compared to August 2017.

Better Bargains in Expensive Neighborhoods

While increasing price reductions is welcome news for most, not all home buyers are likely to benefit equally. To run our analysis at the neighborhood level, we examined all listings in a given area over the past 12 months (Sept 2017 – Aug 2018) and calculated the percent of these listings that had at least one price reduction over the course of the year.

In 79 of the largest 100 metros, a higher share of homes listed in more-expensive neighborhoods are experiencing price reductions than those listed in less expensive areas. In Camden, N.J., 21.5 percent of listings in the most expensive neighborhood of Springdale had a price cut; while in Bergen Square, one of Camden’s least-expensive neighborhoods, just 8.6 percent of listings had a price cut. Similarly, Raleigh N.C.’s, more expensive Glenwood and Five Points neighborhoods have seen 18.9 percent and 16.7 percent of their listings go through at least one price cut over the past 12 months; while the less expensive areas of South Raleigh and Southeast Raleigh only saw 5.8 percent and 6.7 percent of listings with a price cut.

Size of Price Cuts Continue to Shrink

Although we’re seeing more price cuts nationwide, the reductions themselves are getting smaller. For the 12 months ending August 2018, the median price reduction nationwide knocked 2.6 percent off the listing price. This has been declining steadily since 2012, when the median price reduction was 4 percent. The median value of a price reduction today is less than the median price reduction at the outset of the recovery in 97 of the 100 largest metros analyzed.

The smallest price cuts today, at just 1.3 percent at the median, can currently be found in San Antonio. The largest price drops are found on homes in San Francisco and Detroit, where listings that go through a price reduction see a median drop of 4.6 percent and 4.1 percent, respectively.

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Note: Click here for the full data

For more information, please check out Trulia’s Latest Price Cuts Report for a more detailed analysis.

About Trulia

Trulia’s mission is to build a more neighborly world by helping you discover a place you’ll love to live. Homebuyers and renters use Trulia’s website and suite of mobile apps to get a deeper understanding of homes and neighborhoods across the U.S. through personalized recommendations, insights sourced straight from locals, and 34 neighborhood map overlays that offer details on commute, reported crime, schools, nearby businesses, and more. Founded in 2005, Trulia is based in San Francisco, and owned and operated by Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z and ZG). Trulia is a registered trademark of Trulia, LLC.

For further information:

pr@trulia.com